Postgame: Swept by St. Louis

Some of the takeaway following Wednesday’s 6-1 loss and three-game series sweep at the hands of the Cardinals.

The good —

Not much to talk about in this regard.

The not-so-good —

*For all the trash talk and trouble Brandon Phillips started, he certainly did not back it up. Phillips dropped a 2-for-14 dud over the three-game series. In Wednesday’s 1-for-4 game, he hit two balls back to the pitcher and grounded out routinely to first base. His single came with two outs in the eighth with the Reds already down by six runs.

*People are going to filet the Reds for not getting it done. But Cardinals pitchers had a lot to do with it, especially Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia and Adam Wainwright. Those dudes are no slouches.

All three rank in the top 10 in ERA in the National League. Wainwright is now tied for the league lead with 17 wins. He has a 1.99 ERA.

*Reds hitters batting .186 (18-for-97) in the series. They had only nine hits with two extra-base hits against the St. Louis starters. The Reds were outscored, 21-8 and outhit, 35-18.

*Scott Rolen is hitless in his last 12 ABs, including 0-for-10 in the series.

Perspective —

Yes the Reds are now down one game in the NL Central after coming in two ahead. Yes, they got blown up in their own building by a team that’s been around the block as contenders often. But it’s one series and the sky isn’t falling because of this. The Reds have done a good job this season at not letting bad play spill over into long losing streaks. They haven’t lost more than five in a row all year and that streak was in early April.

But what happened this week definitely seemed to stir the hornets’ nest on the St. Louis side. If they weren’t motivated enough to stick it to the Reds before, they are now.

Quotes —

“Everybody knew he had to come over the plate at that time because you don’t want to walk in a run. Bronson, other than that one inning, threw the ball pretty well.” — Dusty Baker on the Colby Rasmus grand slam off Bronson Arroyo

“I nibbled a little bit with Holliday. The umpire had a really rigid zone today so it kind of changes your perspective on how you want to get guys out. I wasn’t getting a whole lot on the inner half to Rasmus the first couple of at-bats. At 2-2, I didn’t feel like I could go on the inner half. I didn’t think I’d get a strike in there. I didn’t think he was going to swing. I kind of was just playing the odds, staying on the outer half hoping he’d pop something up. I threw him a 3-2 sinker, took a little off. It was kind of a BP fastball and he hit it good.” — Arroyo

“It certainly added fuel to our fire, when you’ve got guys opening their mouth saying stupid stuff. But we only use that in a positive way. it’s very unprofessional to fire back. just go out there and win the game on the field, not off the field. That’s what we did this series.” — Adam Wainwright on Brandon Phillips.

“We’ve got a well-time off day right now. We’ll go relax, rest a little bit and come back. We’ll keep playing. Florida isn’t going to come in here and lay down. We’ve been a game up, a game down all year. Would we have liked the outcome to have been better? Yeah, we would have obviously.” — Scott Rolen

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